


(after)life after purgatory

by skogr



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Gen, paragon Shepard Omega DLC outcome, post-omega dlc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29296500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skogr/pseuds/skogr
Summary: What happens after Shepard helps Aria take back Omega.
Relationships: Aria T'Loak/Original Character(s), Nyreen Kandros/Aria T'loak (past relationship)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	(after)life after purgatory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [White Aster (white_aster)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/gifts).



> My gift for white_aster for the Mass Effect Holiday Cheer 2020/21! I hope I hit a few of the things you were after :')
> 
> A metric bajillion of thanks to Stonestrewn for the encouragement/magical beta powers!

The Alliance won’t collect Petrovsky for a week. That’s human gratitude for you.

Shepard won’t take him either. She grins when she refuses, like she thinks it’s amusing. They’re asking Aria to _babysit_ this smug, pathetic little man, when she’s far more inclined to block his airways as slowly and painfully as she knows how.

“What? My ship’s got nowhere secure for prisoners,” Shepard says briskly, still with that infuriating smirk on her face, “and even if I did, we don’t have time for another detour.” _Another_ , a reminder that Aria stole her away from her real responsibilities. 

Bullshit. Shepard hardly needed convincing. 

“There’s a war on, you know.”

“A war I’m now providing considerable resources towards, as well _you_ know.” Aria fixes Shepard with a glare that comes out as weary as it is stony. The latter is the intent, but the former - well. It’s been a long day, and an ugly victory. Now the adrenaline is wearing off, she’s running on empty, with an ache in her limbs and a bitter taste in her mouth. “I should just kill him.”

“He’d deserve it,” Shepard agrees, still looking far too amused for Aria’s liking. “But you won’t.”

“Won’t I?”

“Hackett will know what to do with him,” Shepard continues, as if Aria hasn’t spoken. “And he’s smart enough to know giving up information to the Alliance is in his best interest, as things stand. He’ll cooperate.”

“If his information is so important, you’d think they’d make an effort to arrive sooner,” Aria says sourly. 

Shepard grins again. “Well, there’s a -“

“A war, _yes,_ ” Aria says irritably, “I’m aware. A war where your chances of winning have just improved drastically thanks to what you’ve gained from this arrangement, so you can stop implying I should be grovelling with gratitude. You know me better than to entertain that as a possibility.”

Shepard is still grinning, but the look she gives Aria is suddenly rather shrewd. “I’m not sure about that. You’re full of surprises, T’Loak.”

“It pays to be unpredictable when you’re in my kind of business.”

Again, that shrewd edge to her smile. It sets Aria’s teeth on edge. “Not quite what I meant.”

The irritating thing about humans - and turians and batarians and every other damn species that blink defiantly in and out of existence in a century or less - is that they still have the audacity to talk to someone who’s already lived their lifetime ten times over as if they have some kind of authority. As if, in the meagre handful of decades they have under their belt, they have some new and untapped wisdom to offer. It’s incredibly tedious.

“Bray,” Aria says, her eyes never leaving Shepard’s, “the commander has places to be. See that she gets there.”

Bray gives her a sideways look that she knows well; he’s trying to figure out how pissed she is. Only a few hours ago she _had_ been pissed at him, pissed enough to run her mouth and make half-threats that might only have been half-empty, but none of his missteps matter now. She doesn’t have the energy left to carry a grudge. Besides, he’s made up for his errors in the hours since. 

Paid for them, too, judging by the blood on his shoulder and his swollen eye. 

“You got it,” he says after a brief pause, though she can’t tell what his conclusion is. One of the reasons she likes Bray is that he’s just as steady and reliable whatever her mood. The ones who sulk when they’re out of favour tend not to be around to win it back. It’s not a personality trait Aria cares to work with, and for the most part, she can afford to be picky.

“Be quick about it,” she tells him, knowing that he’ll understand he’s been forgiven. “There’s a lot of work to do.”

He smiles, which always has a startling effect on batarian faces. It shows quite a few of his jagged teeth, and the raised flesh either side of his mouth round out in a way that’s strangely jolly. There’s something about it that always puts Aria in mind of those chubby little dolls that are popular prizes in the claw machines in Gozu. It goes against galactic tradition to consider batarians as dimple-cheeked and cuddly, but who knows? If Shepard wins this thing, they’re going to have a chance at changing their reputation with the Hegemony left in the rubble.

“Will do, boss,” Bray says cheerfully, and he nods his head at Shepard as he sets off to the shuttle at a brisk pace. 

“I should just kill him,” Aria says, raising her voice to carry across the plaza as Shepard looks back over her shoulder. 

“But you won’t,” Shepard calls back, and Aria grinds her teeth as she and Bray round the corner, Shepard’s smug expression lingering in her mind.

He’s not worth the recycled oxygen they’ll pump into his cell for seven days whilst the Alliance stop fucking around and send a ship. What information can he even give Alliance Command that would make such a big difference? He might be able to shed some light on Cerberus, but Petrovsky has been holed up obsessively in his command centre here - _her_ command centre, her _throne_ \- while the rest of his organisation have had somewhat loftier aims. She’d be surprised if he was even that in the loop.

“Jarl,” she says irritably, and the asari is at her side in record time, which is just pathetically eager. She only joined Aria’s operation on the Citadel, but is already well respected by a lot of her people on account of her century as a commando, mostly because they don’t have the foresight of another few centuries behind them. Aliens still tend to get starry-eyed around asari, especially commandos, which is in equal parts amusing and irritating. To Aria, to whom the mystique of commando training lost its sheen centuries ago, Jarl is barely more than an infant when she’s at her least charitable. Youthful enthusiasm makes her grouchy. “He’s in the cell?”

“He is. I can take you to see him, if you’d -“

“I never want to lay eyes on that piece of filth again, but let’s keep him alive to Alliance standards.”

Jarl falters. “Are you saying - should we keep to the Council space prisoner of war guidelines?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not suggesting we allocate him a representative,” Aria says sharply. “But let’s not cause any issues when they come to collect him. Put people we trust on the door, we can’t risk anyone taking bribes or the whole station will be queuing for a chance to make their indignation felt. Not that I blame them.”

“Right,” Jarl says sheepishly, “of course. People we trust.”

A moment’s silence. Aria raises her eyebrows. “You _do_ know who we can trust, I take it?”

Jarl flushes. “Of course.” She’s lying, evidently. Bray can’t return soon enough.

“Speak to Ahz,” Aria says, not bothering to hide her displeasure. “He can point you in the right direction.”

There’s a moment’s silence where they stand there, Aria looking at her lieutenant expectantly. Thessia’s best and brightest.

“ _Now,_ Jarl,” Aria snaps, irritation bubbling over and hitting the nearest, easiest target. She almost feels bad as Jarl’s face falls. Almost. She has to learn. The wounded puppy thing won’t do her any favours now they’re on Omega.

Aria turns around and stalks back into Afterlife, kicking aside a dead Cerberus operative with disgust. More than all the cosmetic changes, what’s extremely disconcerting is the silence coming from the place. The plaza too is quiet and empty, aside from what’s left of the price they paid to retake Omega. The circular blast mark is all that’s left to see of Nyreen’s last stand. Her last, stupid, stubborn stand. Aria doesn’t look back. There’s nothing to see anyway.

She should just kill him. She could make him feel every last lost life before he lost the grip on his own.

But she won’t. 

-

She tears out most of Petrovsky’s adjustments to Afterlife personally, with a mixture of biotics and simple, stress-relieving elbow grease. She guts the place in a matter of hours without any real care for whatever it is her destruction also harms in the way of electronics and wiring. Ahz follows after her, salvaging things which she throws aside and disabling the rest, staying silent in a way that is so uncharacteristic as to be clearly an act of diplomacy. 

That Petrovsky set up in Afterlife at all can only be explained as a final move in the short and aggressive pissing contest that took place before Aria escaped to the Citadel. If he had enjoyed letting her stew in her rage and disgust, then she hopes he now realises that those long months on the Citadel did nothing but fuel her determination. He helped secure his own downfall. Arrogance tends to have that effect.

Aria kicks aside the last piece of Cerberus tech from her particular perch, fists blue and clenched at her side. It’s a wreck, but it’s her wreck. She doesn’t sit, not yet, but she stands on the balcony looking out over the gutted command center with a slowly growing sense of satisfaction. 

“An update please, Ahz,” she says, not turning to check if he’s still following her. His protege, another salarian whose name she hasn’t bothered to retain, is on the lower level seeing to Petrovsky’s aberration in the center of the room. He’s been trying to lift a single piece of twisted metal for a few moments now, without much luck. All the heavy lifters are busy elsewhere on the station, apparently. She takes pity on him, reaching out lazily with her biotics to take the bulk of the weight from him. He startles a little, but looks up with a grateful nod that is only minimally nervous. 

Behind her, Ahz brings some of the tech she recognises as their own to life with a familiar hum. “Weird,” he says, “it’s they didn’t even notice half this stuff. Didn’t hook it up to their systems or rip it out.”

She looks at him expectantly over her shoulder. “Which means?”

Ahz grins, enjoying her impatience. “Makes my job a lot easier.” He taps something into another panel and she turns back to see Afterlife blink into life somewhat: illuminated in colours and lights she recognises from behind all the debris. Her smile is thin but triumphant.

“I see you’ve been busy without me.”

She turns again to see Bray walking up the stairs to the balcony, flanked by Grizz and their new turian Talon liaison - a particularly aggravating slice of bureaucracy, but this is the new Omega status quo that needs to be grappled with, whatever her feelings are - with three more batarians behind him she doesn’t recognise. She spares them only the most cursory of glances.

“Bray,” she says, folding her arms and meeting his grin with a small smile of her own. “Excellent. We’ve been in need of some heavy lifters.”

“I’m not just a pretty face,” Bray tells her, and if he notices Grizz’s sour look at his familiar manner with her, then he doesn’t show it. Grizz’s jealousy is a source of some amusement for her, and she wouldn’t be surprised if Bray is more aware of that than he chooses to acknowledge.

“No one’s ever accused you of that.” She nods at the Talon - Septigia Natanis, she has actually made an effort to retain _this_ name, however grudgingly - trying not to look too obviously irritated. The Talons are still both undeniably useful and hold a lot of sway on Omega, and she intends to keep them on her side as long as necessary. The station is not yet what could be really called stable, and Aria’s no fool. As long as they defer to her when it matters, then - she’ll manage them. For now. Starting with Septigia Natanis.

Natanis is more new blood for the Talons; she had Ahz run some checks in the hours since reinstalling herself in Afterlife. Dishonourable discharge from the turian military, an unremarkable tier in the Hierarchy, a couple of minor offences to be found in the C-Sec records - in short, fairly standard for an Omega resident. Her colony markings are a dark red, almost black, with an unusually solid block of colour just beneath her eyes in a dark square. Aria has never wasted any unnecessary energy memorising turian markings, but she knows enough to recognise a cover-up. Nyreen would be proud.

“The Talons are requesting back up,” Grizz says, stepping forward with a self-important strut. She can’t believe he’s still alive, but here he is. He’d been running with the Talons since Aria left the station and he was stuck here under the occupation, not that you’d know it now he’s back working for her and flipped his alliances quickly and thoroughly. He’s an asshole, but he’s her asshole. Never let it be said she doesn’t inspire loyalty. “I said I’d need to run it by you first.”

“Talking the last force fields in Gozu down shorted a lot of the residential areas,” Natanis says at once, rather disrespectfully, she feels. “Generators are running out of juice.”

“The environmental systems are still running?”

Natanis’ mandibles are tight against her face. “For now.”

Grizz nods his head with a smugness that even irritates her. “So as I said, it isn’t urgent -“

The Talon rounds on him with her neck extended aggressively, all bristling fury. Turians. Give them half a chance to puff themselves up and hiss at each other like cats and they can derail anything. “Isn’t _urgent_? It’s only a matter of hours before the air filters stop running.”

Grizz casts a disdainful look at Natanis, eyes resting briefly on those blocks of colour beneath her eyes. _Ah_. So that’s his problem. “The air quality won’t degrade enough to be fatal for at least another day.”

“That you can even say that with a straight face tells me everything I need to know about you,” Natanis snaps, her neck rigid, “not to mention the priorities of this entire operation -”

“You need to show a little respect -”

_I like it when you’re feisty_ , she’d told Nyreen. And she had. Oh, she’d liked it, she’d liked it even when she thought she’d worked it comprehensively out her system, she’d liked it right up until she didn’t. Until it led somewhere so very fucking pointless. She closes her eyes briefly, and opens them to see Grizz and the Talon still squaring off, mandibles twitching with aggressive energy. She catches Bray’s eyes to see the amusement in his expression as he watches them from where he’s leaning lazily against a console, looking disinclined to interfere. He shrugs with one shoulder as she raises an eyebrow. She’s glad he’s back.

If nothing else, it’s been instructive to get the measure of Natanis. Nyreen clearly found herself quite the collection of disciples.

Aria raises a hand in sharp warning to Grizz, and he takes an obedient step back, at least. She turns to Natanis with a carefully neutral expression. “What are you requesting, exactly?” 

She doesn’t back down at all, all her pent-up aggression directed instead at Aria. “We need engineers.”

“I’m a little low on engineers myself,” Aria says, and Natanis’ eyes slide to Ahz where he’s working at a console.

“Surely this is more important than restoring your _nightclub_.” Derision is dripping from Natanis’ last word in an irritating display of uptight disgust, and Grizz steps forward again. Aria shakes her head at him very slightly. He deserves a full reprimand, but she won’t give the Talon the satisfaction of seeing it. Grizz, however, has earned the entertainment.

“A simplistic view,” she tells Natanis coldly, “given everything Afterlife represents to the people.”

She snorts. “The _people_ don't give a shit about this place, they want safe air and working power. Not your dancers.” The last word is said with particular disgust, though Aria knows better than to assume it’s puritanical in nature. Whatever unspoken galactic decree that declares asari to be the most desirable species has made equally arbitrary judgements on where the rest fall on this spectrum, and turians haven’t done very well out of it. They’re too angular, too sharp and ungainly. It’s an idiotic generalisation that doesn’t hold true, of course, but one Aria has always allowed to guide her professional hiring habits. Nyreen had complained about it, too.

Grizz has one hand on his weapon, the transparent bastard. How he made friends in the Talons will forever be a mystery, let alone enough to keep him alive. She’s going to have to keep him away from them and their liaison, clearly. “I think,” he says slowly, probably imagining himself to sound threatening, “it’s time for you to leave.”

“No,” Aria says sharply, and turns around to look out over Afterlife again, pulsing a vibrant purple. Figures that Nyreen would be irritating her from beyond the grave, even, with this truly perplexing change in ideology from the Talons that perseveres even after their ringleader goes and gets herself blown up. They’re shaping up to be a very persistent pain in her ass, against all Aria’s expectations. 

It’s frustrating, of course. It’s infuriating. It’s also familiar in a way that sits both uncomfortably and comfortably in her mind.

She doesn’t turn back to face them, but brushes some dust from the balcony railing as she speaks. “Ahz, I can’t spare anyone working on the mining tech, so you’re up. Take your nervous friend.” His nervous friend looks up to the balcony from below, with a querulous expression. She should probably learn his name.

“Thank you.” Natanus sounds surprised, but still somehow begrudging of her help. There’s no pleasing some people.

“Quick as you can, Ahz,” Aria says, still gazing out over the room with a hard expression. “We’ll continue without you for the time being.”

She turns only enough to look at Bray, who looks back curiously at her as Grizz herds the Talon back out with an officiousness that’s doing him no favours. Idiot.

“Not a word,” she snaps under her breath, and he holds his hands up in good-natured surrender. 

“Sure we can spare him?”

“No.” Aria drums her fingers on the balcony, watching Ahz follow Natanis out the main entrance. “But we can’t spare Gozu.”

“They’d start dying sooner than a day,” Bray concedes, “the air filters aren’t operating at optimal -”

“ I know. Should’ve retrofitted them after that damn plague.”

Bray tilts his head to one side, regarding her carefully. He doesn’t make a habit of criticising her decisions after the fact, even if she does so first, but he breaks tradition this time. “Yeah. Probably.”

Aria takes a deep, irritated breath, clenching her jaw. It’s been a long day. It’s going to be even longer before it’s done, and their next stop is the mines. She’ll relax when normality is within her grasp, and until then, she’ll have to just keep going.

“I need a fucking drink,” she mutters.

-

Afterlife never made good business sense, not really. It was never the official throne of the self-proclaimed ruler of Omega before Aria first stalked up the steps to that balcony and made it her own, but it was always the de facto hub, and she wanted the symbolism of it to be clear to every last resident of the station. Sometimes there’s really no call for subtlety. 

The club is still a hub - not under Petrovsky’s ministrations, but she’ll soon see to that - but the beating heart of Omega is far less presentable, deep in the eezo processing plants in the mines at the core of the asteroid. To control Omega is to control the mines, and therein lies your profit margin, your power, and your currency across the Terminus and beyond.

Sitting in Afterlife watching the dancers and looking glamorously bored is all well and good, and perhaps it wouldn’t do for everyone to know that she spends as long as she does pouring over figures and shipping manifestos, but most of the time, that’s the real work. The Patriarch, when he held the reins of Omega before her, generally shunned it and left it to his underlings. Namely Aria. More fool him.

Aria prefers to keep her knowledge of the mines she controls as firsthand as possible. She doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty, and if you want something done properly…

Nyreen always thought it was funny, because Nyreen liked to talk up the idea of Aria as the pampered princess of the Terminus’ most profitable asteroid, mostly because she knew it irritated her. There’s no explaining why Aria put up with it. She wouldn’t have accepted the relentless teasing from anyone else, but you slip, sometimes. The average civilian turian lifespan is 109 galactic standard years off-world, a little shorter than on Palaven if you can’t afford the specialised treatment to replicate its unique radioactive effects that slows the aging process. It drops to 87 in the Terminus, 83 on Omega specifically. You slip up with these short lived aliens, sometimes. Their lives are so short you get careless. 

But you’ll outlive them in the end, so that hold they think they have on you is as fleeting as they are. It’s not so long to threaten you, a mere 83 years. 

It drops to 37 for turians with a saviour complex hell-bent on becoming a martyr for no fucking reason whatsoever. 

Aria doesn’t have a general public to perform for now, not while Afterlife is out of commission, so she’s free to get her hands as dirty as she likes in the mines, and she doesn’t get the impression that Natanis is the type to laugh at her. 

Shame. A little humour would make her far less sour.

“I can give you ten of my people,” Natanis says, after a silence so long that Aria has braced herself for the official Talon refusal she’s expecting to receive. “I have more than that who worked in the mines prior to Cerberus, but I can’t spare them.”

“Ten,” Aria says slowly, as though she’s mulling it over. It’s far more than she expected, but it won’t do to let them know that. “Good. Thank you.”

“It’s the least we can do in return for the assistance of your engineers.”

Another surprise. Aria watches Natanis closely as she taps something into her omnitool display. How old is she, she wonders. Turians age particularly obscurely even for aliens, and those with short fringes give you even less to go on.

Natanis closes the display and looks up again. The markings on her face give her a more severe look than she’d have without them, which in most cases, Aria would assume is intentional. With Natanis, she can’t be sure. It’s quite an aggressive cover up, so perhaps the aesthetics weren’t the priority. 

“There, I’ve let them know. They’ll be here in an hour.”

“Good,” Aria says again, and beckons Bray over to where they’re standing. As he makes him way across to them, she hands Natanis one of the datapads in her hands. “For your people. I trust you find these targets reasonable.”

“These… are considerably less than the Cerberus numbers.”

Aria snorts. “Cerberus were running this place into the ground. It’s not sustainable.”

“Which means your profit isn’t sustainable, I assume,” Natanis says, with quite some bite to her words. And they were getting along so _well_. 

Aria doesn’t rise to it, turning instead to Bray as he reaches their platform.

Bray isn’t Ahz, but Ahz is off playing hero with the Talons, so he doesn’t start reeling off the information she’s accustomed to receiving when she hands over the manifestos. Bray just looks at them silently for a long moment, then looks back at Aria.

“That’s a lot of eezo,” he says slowly.

“Shepard needs eezo, she gets eezo,” Aria mutters, massaging her temples with irritation. “I don’t have to like it, but this is a war we can’t afford to ignore.”

If Shepard fails, it won’t matter anyway, but after everything Aria is pouring into this war, Shepard and her whole motley alliance had better deliver the goods. Whatever world remains when the dust clears - and something _will_ remain - Omega is coming out of this ready to keep on going. Aria doesn’t consider either of these negotiable. 

“It’s over seventy per cent of our output, and we have no reserves to lean back on after Cerberus.”

“It’s what she needs,” Aria says, through gritted teeth. 

Bray was raised off-world. She can’t remember where. He hasn’t been on friendly terms with a lot of his family on account of some hierarchical feud or similar, but she’d also seen his face when he got the news about Khar’shan and Hegemony space. Aria sees a subdued echo of that now as he looks at her. 

“I know that,” he says, eerily aimable for someone looking down the barrel of their species’ extinction event, “you know that, but do they?”

She knows who he means. _They_. Everyone looking to her to undo the misery of Cerberus rule. Everyone waiting for her to fuck up, too. “I’ll take the hit. Anyone who has a problem with my methods is welcome to join the front line in fighting the Reapers.” She turns to Natanis, sensing her gaze on her as she watches this exchange and anticipating her protests. “Your people will get their cut.”

Natanis pauses for a moment, glancing down at the datapad. Her eyes flicker through the figures and she seems to be counting under her breath. “No,” she says eventually, “keep it.” She hands the datapad back to Aria with a stubbornness to her expression that is nauseatingly familiar. “We can negotiate again when your reserves are up. The war is more important.”

Aria raises her eyebrows. “That won’t be a popular decision.”

Natanis just looks back at her with that familiar expression, all obstinate defiance. Then, she surprises Aria once more, with a hint of a smile as her mandibles spread and she shows her teeth. 

“I’ll take the hit.”

-

The three batarians Aria didn’t recognise turn out to be Bray’s relatives he’d collected on the Citadel whilst delivering Shepard. She finds this oddly amusing, but she can’t exactly blame him for taking in his refugee family members and so lets him bring them quietly into the fold with no more than a raised eyebrow. At this point, anyone who can bolster their numbers and is prepared to put in the work is an asset, and they seem to be more or less on board with both. 

Batarian family resemblance is a subtle thing, and the tallest one catches her eyeing them thoughtfully, comparing their cartilage ridges for similarities. Rather than bristle or shrink away, the batarian gives her a pointed grin and a wink. 

A _wink_. 

At least, presumably that’s what it is when a batarian closes their two left eyes at you deliberately. Aria meets this with a cool expression of boredom. Trust Bray to have relatives that feel empowered to _wink_ at Aria T’loak. They’re just lucky she’s feeling generous, and in need of some extra muscle. 

Amusement, however, is in plentiful supply since she put Jarl in charge of recruiting new dancers.

“Right,” Jarl says, evidently flustered and clutching the datapad tightly. “If you could - er, if we could get a demonstration -“

The asari being ‘interviewed’ looks about her doubtfully, taking in the still unfinished Afterlife and the various aliens milling about the place industriously in the fully illuminated room. There’s Ahz to her left - she needs to give him a raise after dealing with this, he had Gozu up and running in an impressively short time, and short-lived salarians are especially amenable to being head-hunted - wearing a visor and doing something with the wiring that’s causing an alarming amount of sparks. His nervous protege is to her right, tapping away on a console. It’s neither an appreciative audience nor exactly setting the mood, and Jarl has them standing in a particularly grubby corner. 

The asari’s mouth twists doubtfully. “Right here?”

“If you could,” Jarl says, and the asari hesitates again before doing her level best to demonstrate her dancing skills in a fully lit building site to absolutely no music whatsoever. Aria isn’t without sympathy, but it’s also fucking hilarious. She watches from her balcony with a slowly curving smile.

“Hire this one, definitely,” comes a voice behind her. It’s the tall batarian with overactive eyelids. “She deserves it just for not walking out. She’s not bad at dancing, either.”

“Hmm.” Aria looks back at the batarian with a sharp expression, but it doesn’t deter them. “I’ve never hired purely on performance, as it happens. I look for a variety of skills in my front of house employees.”

The batarian grins, like they’re sharing an inside joke. They’re not. “Well, she can handle herself. See how she checked the exits?”

Aria narrows her eyes at the batarian in a return to the scrutiny that earned her the wink. “You are _who_ , exactly?”

Batarians, like most other bipedal aliens, have sexual dimorphism to some degree, though relying on those traits to gender someone is neither polite nor particularly reliable. All batarians are covered in fine hair, but generally it’s the females in whom this hair is most visible and has a fuller coverage. This particular batarian, now Aria is up close, leans this way. They’re taller than most, and leaner, too. An excess of confidence as well, Aria notes dryly, as they lean against the balcony beside her. 

“Rhesh Khah’hatte,” the batarian says, unsurprisingly giving Bray’s family name. The prefix connotes a more highly regarded caste, if Aria remembers correctly. The idea of Bray as a little rich boy turned rebellious runaway has always amused her. “No need to tell me who you are, of course.”

“Of course,” Aria says mockingly, but there’s disappointingly little in the way of reaction from Rhesh. “So you’re one of Bray’s stray relatives. How good of him to burden me with you _and_ your unsolicited opinions.”

“His sister,” Rhesh says, which answers that question. She’s as impossible to deter as her brother, quite unaffected by Aria’s pointed rudeness. “I’m just offering some advice. It’s up to you if you want to take it.”

Aria smiles coldly, flashing her teeth briefly. She may not have the jagged ones that make this so effective in batarians, but perhaps she’ll back down to Aria meeting her forwardness with her own species’ gestures. “And why, Rhesh Khah’hatte, should your advice be worth shit to me?” 

“No reason at all.” Rhesh shrugs. “Except you’re about to start losing potential employees if this continues.” 

“I know how to run my own operation.”

“Of course you do.” Rhesh raises her hands with a grin, but backs off. The other two batarians, along with Bray and a human she probably ought to recognise, have made their way over to them. Rhesh falls in line with her family members, though not looking nearly as deferencial as Aria would like. 

“Report, Bray,” she says lazily. “Just give me a date, I’m tired of the details. Can we open tomorrow or not?”

“We can,” he says, the start of a smile on his face. “If Jarl has the staffing in hand.”

“She’d better.” Aria glances across at Rhesh, despite knowing better, who just looks at her placidly with those two pairs of black batarian eyes, so hard to read on their own. “Your sister’s full of opinions, Bray. She’s been expressing her doubts in Jarl’s hiring methods.”

Bray gives Rhesh a wary look. “Hmm.”

“Do you agree?”

Bray regards Aria for a long moment, evidently trying to decide how much she really wants his opinion. Eventually, he shrugs. “She’s making offers to a lot of asari. I don’t know that it’s a _problem_ , but we spoke about moving away from that.”

Aria nods, glancing back to Jarl with irritation. She’d been clear when she’d given her the brief; they’re trying to co-exist with mercs-turned-do-gooder-security-force made up of more aliens than not, and they’re trying to gain influence in several turian-heavy districts in the post-Cerberus landscape. Afterlife needs to look like they mean that. All aliens like asari, but all aliens like to see their own, too. Time to shake up the cliches, let some other species get their time in the spotlight.

“Didn’t she make an offer to that turian before? I specifically asked for turians.”

“Don’t think so, no.”

“I’ll have her head,” Aria mutters, not missing Rhesh’s grin but ignoring it nonetheless.

“Not just turians,” the human whose name she doesn’t remember pipes up, with a tangible sense of disgust that he might be expected to enjoy watching a _turian_ dance. That sets her teeth on edge already, even without his pitiful little follow up comment of: “Human women too, not just asari women.” Sometimes humans really are her _least_ favourite species. 

“Asari _women?_ ” she says icily, in the tone that makes Bray smile widely as he settles in for the show.

“You know what I mean,” the human says, with the first burgeoning hint of nervousness. “I mean, you’re _all_ women, but -“

“Spare me your ignorant projections,” Aria says, not needing to exaggerate her weary boredom at all. Humans aren’t unique in this persistent view of asari, but at least the other aliens have generally made progress in the right direction. 

The human scowls. “But you’ve - I mean, you’ve all got -“

“Mention my tits and it’ll be the last thing you do,” Aria says lightly, almost casually, _almost_ a joke, but she takes a step towards him and he steps backwards hurriedly, his eyes fixed obediently on hers. He’s not worth the effort, no doubt, but she’s had a challenging week. Everyone needs a hobby. 

Bray is content to just watch her stare this human down for a long moment, working his jaw so as not to laugh, and then leans in close to his ear. The human flinches, which is also amusingly predictable. The typical human perception of asari doesn’t mesh well with how Aria wants them to view her, but the typical human perception of batarians works just fine for Bray.

“Didn’t hire you for your opinions,” Bray says conversationally, “so how about you get back to work?”

The human practically runs back down the stairs, and Bray finally lets himself have that grin he’s been fighting so diligently. His relatives, including Rhesh, seem to share his enjoyment of intimidating useless humans. Particularly Rhesh.

“Don’t forget batarians,” Rhesh says slyly, and Aria wonders, not for the first time, why it is that she’s consistently attracted to women with a really fucking terrible sense of self preservation. It’s a constant source of irritation, and a personality flaw she’s always meant to correct. It’s a work in progress, anyway.

She turns her intense gaze on Rhesh, who doesn’t flinch. “Are you volunteering?”

Rhesh snorts. “No.”

“Shame,” Aria says. “At least make yourself useful. Tell Jarl you’re taking over to fill the rest of our hiring quota.”

Rhesh shows visible surprise for only a brief moment, before nodding and setting off purposefully, even just the way she walks exuding smugness. Bray watches with bemusement before waving the other two batarians away, giving Aria a particularly inscrutable look. She returns it haughtily. 

“What? I think she has potential.”

Bray just shakes his head with a grin.

-

The day that never-ends, eventually, ends.

Or perhaps it’s been two days. Three? Aria hardly knows. 

The last time she slept was on the Citadel, in her apartment near Purgatory that was sterile and soulless. The C-Sec patrol for that area went right past her window, and every time she saw their pathetic littleshuttle go by she found she was able to plumb new depths of her hatred for the entire station. 

Her apartment on Omega is practically untouched. No doubt Cerberus had long term plans for it, but it doesn’t seem like they made much headway. They managed to get past the door, although not through bypassing her extensive security measures with any sophistication - there’s a hole in the metal door where the lock used to be, with laser damaged edges of a burnished black.

She’ll have to get that fixed. If she wasn’t so exhausted, she might even summon up the appropriate amount of concern for the security implications of not just the missing lock, but the fact that her apartment’s location might not be as secure as it once was. As it is, Bray posts an extra guard rotation outside the atrium, and she hauls one of the ugly Cerberus shield generators to stand in her doorway. She has to hit it three times before the useless machinery whirs to life.

After the day she’s had? It’ll have to do. 

Her nightly routine may have been disrupted for many long, frustrating months, but it’s easy to slip back into the habit of several centuries. 

Aria pours herself a drink without caring much which bottle she reaches for. She’s amassed quite a private collection, but she’s not in the mindset to sit and savour something particularly exclusive or expensive. It’s comfort enough to know that Cerberus left them be. There’ll be time, she tells herself. There’d better be time.

Beverage taken care of, she hits the panel on the wall of her central and largest room, and the shutters along the entirety of that wall fold themselves neatly into the recess at the top, revealing a window that runs the length of her apartment. 

It’s one way glass, of course, and more than that it doesn’t even look like glass from the other side, but a solid and weathered bulkhead. Omega isn’t to know that her queen is watching. It’s ostentatious and excessive and, as Bray likes to remind her dryly, a security hazard waiting to happen. 

And as she likes to remind him, she doesn’t care. This view is _hers_.

So, for the first time in months, Aria stretches out on her couch in front of the glowing skyline of Omega, and enjoys a drink in the quiet privacy of her apartment. The sheer satisfaction of it can’t be understated.

She closes her eyes and savours it fiercely. She savours it because she’d gone so long without it after almost forgetting to appreciate it for years, and she savours it because she doesn’t want to take it for granted ever again. She savours it because even if she keeps a flawlessly tight leash on Omega from this moment onwards, there are far bigger forces at play that could still rip this all away.

The sound of boots in the atrium and the scrape of the generator being moved across the floor aren’t entirely unexpected. Aria’s not an idiot. Even so, she keeps her eyes closed as there’s a knock at her door, and doesn’t open them. The knock has a slightly mocking quality to it, on account of her door being so clearly nonfunctional. Probably also because she has quite a clear mental picture of who it could be, and she hasn’t decided what to do about it.

“Funny,” she says, still not opening her eyes. “I specifically requested not to be disturbed.”

There’s a quiet laugh, low and raspy and distinctly batarian. “I need you to sign off on this hiring report for tomorrow.”

Aria has never _signed off_ anything in her entire tenure at Omega. Nor are batarians particularly well known for their bureaucratic tendencies. 

She opens her eyes and looks at Rhesh from across the room. “ _Do_ you.”

Rhesh shrugs, leaning against the wall with an impassive smile. “I’m new,” she says, a little mischievously. “Maybe I don’t know how things are done round here.”

“Indeed.” Aria narrows her eyes. “You don’t seem fully aware of who I am.”

“I know who you are,” Rhesh says, and then gives Aria a mocking grin. “I’m just not afraid of you.”

“I don’t _demand_ fear,” Aria says lazily, “but I do demand respect.”

Rhesh nods her head slowly, all four eyes trained on Aria as she seems to reassess the situation. So she’s not completely without decorum. “If I’ve disrespected you, then I apologise.”

Aria looks at her critically for a long moment, and Rhesh stays leaning there and takes it. “You haven’t,” Aria says eventually, and then takes a leisurely sip of her drink as if she’s still alone, and Rhesh isn’t there. She hasn’t made her decision yet, and besides, she’s intrigued to see what Rhesh does. She's an unknown in a way that makes her interesting, a safe source of fascination, perhaps. 

Undeterred by being ignored, Rhesh steps away from the wall and closer to the window. “That’s quite a view of Kandros Plaza.”

Aria freezes with her glass halfway to her mouth. “Of _what_?”

“Isn’t that what it’s called, the plaza outside Afterlife? The Talons call it that, anyway.”

“Of course they do,” Aria says, and puts her drink down abruptly on the table in front of her. Of course they fucking do. It’ll catch on, in all likelihood, and she’ll have to allow it. She needs to keep them on side. 

She hates pointless but demonstrative displays of sentiment like that. She hates this one more than most. 

Rhesh watches her curiously from where she’s standing by the window, but if she’s hoping for an explanation, Aria isn’t feeling particularly forthcoming.

“I don’t sign off reports,” Aria says shortly, “if you do work for me, I’m trusting you to do the tasks I assign. If I’m unhappy with your performance, rest assured you will know.”

“Yeah,” Rhesh says, smiling slightly again. “I know.”

So she’s not taking the easy out, then. Interesting.

“Nor do I appreciate attempts to ingratiate yourself, to be clear. I don’t do favours. Or nepotism,” she adds, meeting Rhesh’s eyes again. 

“Nepotism?” Rhesh looks puzzled for the first time. “You think I’m -“

“I presume nothing. I merely want to be clear.”

“Aria,” Rhesh says, and if she wasn’t a batarian she’d call her tone of voice soft. _Aria_. Like she knows her. It ought to be overly familiar and grating. Maybe it would be if she wasn’t too tired to care. “Have you watched the vids coming out of Hegemony space?”

“Some of them.” She hasn’t the stomach for it. Her watching them or otherwise didn’t change the fact that they’d happened. Didn’t change the likelihood of whether she’d end up experiencing the same thing firsthand. It wasn’t a productive use of her time, and Bray would shut his screen down when she came by. 

“They don’t even come close.” Rhesh doesn’t sound bitter or maudlin. If anything, she just sounds quietly regretful. “The recent estimates are that ninety five per cent of batarians are either already dead or indoctrinated, you know that? Most of the refugees have signed up to join the batarian fleet that’s under Alliance command now, and even if they weren’t mostly untrained civilians, I don’t envy any of the front line their chances. I’ve seen how many ships those _things_ can cut through.”

There’s not much Aria can say to that. She’s helped Shepard recruit plenty mercs for the front lines, and she has no illusions about what they’ll be facing. She’d do it again. 

“Where were you?”

“Camala.”

Aria nods. “Of course. The eezo.”

“You need a lot of eezo to win a war.”

“So I’m discovering,” Aria says flatly, rubbing at a temple. “But what does that have to do with -“

“I’m an endangered species,” Rhesh says, with a wryness that is both amused and so very grim at the same time. “So _fuck_ nepotism. If these are the end times, I’m going down swinging.”

Aria crosses one leg over the other and looks at her imperiously. “That’s quite a line.”

“If it works,” Rhesh says, clearly fighting a grin. She’s still waiting for that decision, and Aria can’t put it off any longer. 

She hasn’t been this exhausted in years. Decades, probably. She’s running on fumes and there’s probably still adjutant blood on her somewhere. More than just adjutant blood, too.

If these _are_ the end times -

Aria T’loak is going down swinging. 


End file.
